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Wednesday, 19 February 2014

'Learning maths is even more pointless than Latin'

This interesting article by Simon Jenkins in today's Guardian is a refreshing diatribe against mathematics. I wonder what subjects schools should teach. What come to mind immediately are: driving, typing, religious instruction (as opposed to religious education), cooking, history, literature, especially poetry (but nothing after 1945 please), German and at least one other language, probably Spanish or Russian (and teach lots of grammar rather than trying to get thirty boys to make conversation), history of art, useful non-team sports like tennis that people will actually play in adult life and, most important of all, psychology.

The most important are the life lessons taught by other children in the playground - and these can be incredibly painful for children who do not fit in. Philip Larkin put it well.

When I was at school I thought I hated the human race, but when I grew up I realised it was just children I couldn't stand.

It would be much better to skip these often very damaging playground lessons which are a form of child abuse. If you can afford a private tutor for your child, get one. In Bucharest they are affordable.In fact, a lot of schooling can now be done at home over the internet which is the best place for children to learn but if I am right we should need to decide whether schools are necessary to educate children or to enable mothers to go out to work. There is no longer much need for many universities. Most universities should become virtual and teach largely online. This will enable a much wider access to university - to everyone of any age, class, nationality and educational achievement who has sufficient access to the net. There should only remain a few major universities in each country, for educating a small academically-minded elite and for conducting research. Such universities should only teach real subjects and this would not include vocational subjects like law or medicine, or still less that trahison des clercs 'business education'.I think teaching comparative religion to British schoolchildren instead of Christianity (or another religion if the school is Jewish or Muslim) was the most significant development of that very socially liberal decade the 1980s and will have immensely far-reaching and disastrous consequences.I do not agree with Simon Jenkins that teaching Latin is necessarily a bad idea, unless like me you were taught using the Cambridge Latin Course and therefore not taught to write Latin. If you are taught by that accursed course, which is still widely used, and get a grade A at A Level, as I did, you still cannot read Latin - or not without a crib. So what is the point? My school gave me a choice between German, Latin and Russian as the second foreign language and I wish I had learnt Russian instead of Latin. If I had, I could now read Pushkin in the original and make myself understood in Samarkand or Yerevan.In any case, Latin should just be for the fairly few children (few boys at least, more girls) who have literary tastes (as should most courses at universities, come to that, except for maths and the hard sciences). Latin should be accompanied by Greek, which gives you very many more good things to read. Latin literature is overrated. One learns a language to read poetry, as prose can be translated. Catullus is wonderful, I must reread Horace now that I am the age to enjoy him, Virgil and Ovid are very good indeed but none are as good as Shakespeare and English literature has many more great poets than Latin. Latin, though, is enormously influential. Ovid begat Shakespeare, for example. So there is a case for teaching Latin, though not an overwhelmingly strong one. The same is true of maths.

Writing this rigmarole, I am put in mind of the Mock Turtle:

'We had the best of educations—in fact, we went to school every day—''I'VE been to a day-school, too,' said Alice; 'you needn't be so proud as all that.''With extras?' asked the Mock Turtle a little anxiously.'Yes,' said Alice, 'we learned French and music.''And washing?' said the Mock Turtle.'Certainly not!' said Alice indignantly.'Ah! then yours wasn't a really good school,' said the Mock Turtle in a tone of great relief.

My kids will love this article. Maths was the bane of my youth. I understood none of it and felt like an idiot. Being classed as a moron I wasn't even allowed near the Latin classroom. Fortunately I found out later in life that one doesn't need to be clever to prosper

Indeed being too clever can be a handicap sometimes. I did not like maths but it had a beauty in it like wrestling with a handsome woman as Halifax said about what was it? Or was it some other bloke? I sent it to my nephew and niece - this is what uncles are for.

Geography is useful. So possibly is maths as a mental exercise. It was not until the 3rd year at grammar school that we caught up with the maths I had learnt in primary school. I got a B at O Level. But the important things are religion literature history. They form a nation. At the moment human rights are taught meaning feminism, egalitarianism and many things that were until recently considered advanced or even shocking.

Jenkins is the butt end of the compass. He's a very strange man. I'd love to test his differential calculus. Simple maths is quite like Latin, as a rigorous and logical mental training tool. More advanced maths is one of the greatest achievements of humanity.

I would avoid school until the age of 16. Prior to that it is a spectacular waste of valuable time that could have been dedicated to more interesting activities. 'You appear to have no interest in Maths Smith', 'That is correct sir'. 'You will not be admitted to the Latin class Smith, if you carry on like this'. 'Shall we settle for that Miss?' 'What is your purpose in this class Smith?' 'I'd be delighted if you could tell me Sir.' Each of these engagements was followed by three of the belt. I could easily have done without this form of punitive education during my early teenage years.

Well, I respectfully disagree with this statement, and not only because I am a University professor. I can see the difference that a good class interaction can have, where students get to understand the material through a back-and-forth conversation, not only a dry outline of the material that can be delivered by online lectures. The idea is appealing, however, the reality somewhat contradicts it. As a professor you can only read PowerPoints and deliver some examples in an online-only environment, which is not as conducive to learning as an intelligent discussion that benefits from different perspectives that the different students bring in. 'Chip' Stan

Schools should obviously teach about sex, most of world problems are becuase folks are uneducated on sex. Mathematics has never solved real world problem. only some abstracts problems that dont improve anyone's life.